SynthesisBMJ (Clinical research ed.)2013
Work stress and risk of cancer: meta-analysis of 5700 incident cancer events in 116,000 European men and women.
Synthesis in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 72 papers, 10 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
72 citing papers in PubMed, 10 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 211 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mapping Psychosocial Determinants for Cancer Onset: An Umbrella Review.Psycho-oncology · 2026Pooled it
- Chronic psychosocial stress: a role in breast cancer etiology?Frontiers in oncology · 2026Pooled it
- Risk factors for breast cancer: an umbrella review of observational cohort studies and causal relationship analysis.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Pooled it
- Psychosocial work exposures and health outcomes: a meta-review of 72 literature reviews with meta-analysis.Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health · 2021Pooled it
- Psychological Stress and Cellular Aging in Cancer: A Meta-Analysis.Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity · 2019Pooled it
- Obesity and risk of bladder cancer: a dose-response meta-analysis of 15 cohort studies.PloS one · 2015Pooled it
- A systematic review and meta-analysis of tobacco use and prostate cancer mortality and incidence in prospective cohort studies.European urology · 2014Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Is personality associated with cancer incidence and mortality? An individual-participant meta-analysis of 2156 incident cancer cases among 42,843 men and women.British journal of cancer · 2014Pooled it
- Perceived job insecurity as a risk factor for incident coronary heart disease: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2013Pooled it
- Stress and risk of breast cancer; findings from a large population-based incident case-control study.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- [Psychological distress and cancer: facts and myths in the light of scientific evidence].Magyar onkologia · 2026Review
- Chronic Stress, Immune Suppression, and Cancer Occurrence: Unveiling the Connection Using Survey Data and Predictive Models.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Introducing anxiety as a risk factor of gastric cancer.Gastroenterology and hepatology from bed to bench · 2026Article
- Sick Leave due to Stress and Subsequent Cancer Risk, a Swedish National Registry Study of 516,678 Cancer Cases.Cancer medicine · 2025Article
- Influence of occupational stress on breast cancer incidence in the Women's Health Initiative.Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2025Observational
- Article
- Sensitivity to Environmental Stress and Adversity and Lung Cancer.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Occupational, socioeconomic factors and cancer mortality in participants of the Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brazil): a multiple correspondence analysis.Revista brasileira de epidemiologia = Brazilian journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Modifiable Risk Factors Including Self-Perceived Stress for Breast Cancer in Hong Kong: A Case-Control Study of 10 757 Subject.Clinical Medicine Insights. Oncology · 2025Article
12 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
43 authors at 17 institutions in 6 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo investigate whether work related stress, measured and defined as job strain, is associated with the overall risk of cancer and the risk of colorectal, lung, breast, or prostate cancers.
designMeta-analysis of pooled prospective individual participant data from 12 European cohort studies including 116,056 men and women aged 17-70 who were free from cancer at study baseline and were followed-up for a median of 12 years. Work stress was measured and defined as job strain, which was self reported at baseline. Incident cancers (all n=5765, colorectal cancer n=522, lung cancer n=374, breast cancer n=1010, prostate cancer n=865) were ascertained from cancer, hospital admission, and death registers. Data were analysed in each study with Cox regression and the study specific estimates pooled in meta-analyses. Models were adjusted for age, sex, socioeconomic position, body mass index (BMI), smoking, and alcohol intake
resultsA harmonised measure of work stress, high job strain, was not associated with overall risk of cancer (hazard ratio 0.97, 95% confidence interval 0.90 to 1.04) in the multivariable adjusted analyses. Similarly, no association was observed between job strain and the risk of colorectal (1.16, 0.90 to 1.48), lung (1.17, 0.88 to 1.54), breast (0.97, 0.82 to 1.14), or prostate (0.86, 0.68 to 1.09) cancers. There was no clear evidence for an association between the categories of job strain and the risk of cancer.
conclusionsThese findings suggest that work related stress, measured and defined as job strain, at baseline is unlikely to be an important risk factor for colorectal, lung, breast, or prostate cancers.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.